Strange
by marymin
Summary: Konoha wanders off one evening. Kido goes to find him. The request was Kidokono but it's not that shippy, honestly, and has more to do with Konoha's thoughts.


Before, the place Konoha had lived was quiet. Sometimes Sensei would come back for dinner, but most times he would come back only to collapse into bed. Sometimes, he slept nearly as long as Konoha did.

Such memories were foggy, and sometimes seemed to stretch for years. At other times, they seemed only to cover days, days of repetition and silence broken only by the noises Konoha himself made as he wandered around the house, trying to remember the names for the various objects before him. 'Chair', he knew. 'Kitchen', too, was easy for him to remember. 'Door' was one he had learned, around the time he'd learned there were rooms he was not allowed to enter.

Still, it wasn't until the second place that he learned to properly unlock and open a door. It was one of many lessons suddenly tossed at him by the people who milled around him. He was learning so much these days, but he barely had the energy to retain it all. Don't touch this, don't go there, that's called this, here's how you use a phone, that's how you turn on the TV. It was too much for him sometimes, but he did his best, clinging to the scraps of information and fumbling to weave them into a world that he could understand.

It had been late evening when he had used his newfound knowledge to twist the lock on the door, marveling over the satisfying clunk noise that came from within the wood. He locked it and unlocked it a few times, tilting his head, before opening the door itself.

Outside, it was getting dark. He knew at least two of the people were home— the little one with curly hair, and the one with a sharp smile— and he knew their names too, but before he could summon them to mind, a wonderful smell floated down the street, and before he knew it he was out the door and following it around the corner.

When he set foot into the street, an alarm blared in his mind; stopping to think, he was able to recall what he'd been told. The street was for cars, and the sidewalk was for people. He looked more like a person than a car, so he should use the sidewalk. Fair enough.

With his boundaries newly affirmed, Konoha wandered down the street, pausing to smell the air once or twice. He had a suspicion that his senses were better than others, or at least when it came to things like this; it took several minutes of walking before he was able to identify the smell as food. His pace increased, just a little.

The warm orange shade of the sky began to grow pink and blue at the edges, and Konoha was tempted to stop and watch it. He'd seen sunsets through the window, but never from outside, and there was something about the streaks of colors that made him want to put his hands to the sky and smear them like paint.

The smell urged him onwards, though, and he couldn't ignore it. Further away, he could hear the noise of cars and people, but the only sounds from nearby were those of his boots on the pavement. He should be used to silence by now, but instead he found himself recalling the bustle and noise of the place he stayed now. Someone was always shouting or fighting or laughing, and as overwhelming as it could be sometimes, there was a twinge in his chest now.

He wondered if dinner was being made. His favorite person back at the apartment was Kido, and he generally remembered her name because she was the one who fed him. She hadn't been home when he'd left, but that didn't mean anything. Back there people were always in and out, in patterns and schedules that were far too varied for him to make sense of them.

It didn't matter to him, anyway. Konoha had nowhere to be.

After what seemed like hours, but had probably only been minutes— Konoha's sense of time was off at the best of times, and he'd been feeling strange and contemplative for awhile now— he turned another corner and found a food stall, halfway in the process of closing up, or maybe opening for the night.

Either way, the smell of food still hung in the air, but the window coverings were half down, and the only person to be seen was the food stall worker, who looked up in suspicion as Konoha drew nearer.

People always seemed to stare when they encountered Konoha, and he wasn't quite sure why. The people he was staying with now had offered explanations, on everything from his strangely colored hair to his odd clothing, but Konoha never noticed those things about others, so that didn't make much sense to him at all. All the same, the stranger was looking at him with a distrust that made Konoha think he was unlikely to be getting some of whatever he was cooking tonight.

He knew that, but he still couldn't tear his gaze away. The smell was even more captivating up close. Maybe if he asked, someone would buy him some—

"There you are!"

The voice was a little familiar, but Konoha was concerned with more important things, and he didn't look around until a hand caught his arm. He glanced over to find a girl with messy dark hair and a reddened face. Was she breathing hard?

He looked behind her, down the darkened street, but there didn't seem to be anything that would be chasing her. Whatever it was, she was safe now that she was here with him. He wouldn't let her get hurt.

"Kido." he acknowledged, putting name to face with methodical purpose.

"Don't 'Kido' me! Where've you been? Everyone's looking everywhere for you!"

Her raised voice drew the attention of the shopkeeper again, and she threw a sharp glance over his shoulder at the stranger, before seizing Konoha's arm and towing him back the way he'd come.

"Ah… wait…" Konoha was stronger than her, and if he was really committed to staying near the food, he could pull away, or just stop like a rock, and no amount of her pulling would be able to move him. If she just stormed off though, he wouldn't want to leave her alone in the dark, so he followed obediently, though not without a wistful look back at the source of that delicious smell.

Meanwhile, Kido was still talking, in that rapid and angry tone of voice, not leaving him any time to respond. "—And no one knew where you'd gone, and I told Kano I'd kill him for not watching out for you, and what if you got hit by a car? Shintaro said you'd be fine and the car would be the one in trouble, but he was probably kidding and it was tasteless anyway— Don't wander off like that again, okay?"

The deluge of words was so baffling to him that it took him several seconds to realize that she'd paused in order to let him answer.

"…Okay."

"Good."

Even though it didn't seem like a big thing to him, Kido seemed more relaxed now, and her pace slowed to walk side by side with him, although her fingers still curled around his wrist.

They stopped on a street corner to let a car pass, and Kido's expression still seemed a little troubled. Konoha searched for the right thing to say. He wanted to explain why he'd gone, but he wasn't sure if that would make her angrier.

"…I'm sorry."

The worlds startled even him, and she glanced up at him wide-eyed, before quickly looking down again. "You should be," she replied, "but apology accepted."

The car was long gone, so Konoha took a step forward to cross the street. Her hand on his wrist made him slow and bend down a little, and Kido went up on her toes to kiss him on the cheek.

"There. Just. Be careful, okay?"

He nodded.

As the sun set and darkness grew around them, the air began to cool, but Konoha felt as warm as ever. He didn't have a name for this feeling either, but maybe later he would ask.


End file.
